Steamy and heartwarming night in Cohasset with Michael Franti and Spearhead

jaymiller

Monday

Jul 23, 2018 at 5:07 AM

You checked your cynicism at the door Sunday night when entering the show from Michael Franti and Spearhead at the South Shore Music Circus in Cohasset. If you didn't, it was most likely sung and danced out of you by evening's end.

Who else does a show like this? The details were 16 songs and about 95 minutes for Franti and Spearhead's headlining set, but the reality was a raucous, joyful revival meeting where hardly anyone who could stand wasn't dancing and clapping and singing along. A night where the all-ages (and we mean ALL ages from about three to eighty-three) and all colors audience celebrated community and helping each other and optimism and hope.

What other popular music performer spends most of the night not just interacting with the crowd, but out among them, singing and dancing, and doing so at a couple points while holding toddlers? How many performers could craft a show devoted entirely to affirmation and love, as this 'Stay Human Tour' is, and not immediately invite snickers and wisecracks from the peanut gallery of the perpetually miserable?

Noting a program he helps that gets concert tickets for children battling serious illnesses, or adults battling tough diseases, Franti had two adult men who've survived multiple cancer bouts, and their wives join him onstage for an exhilarating romp through “I'm Alive (Life Sounds).” For his big finales, Franti had his crew bring up eight little children to dance while he and the band performed the infectious “Say Hey,” and then the rhythmic potboiler “When the Sun Begins to Shine.”

Sure, it's easy to think all that is corny and silly, but it was heartwarming to see those survivors and their spouses blinking in the spotlight and enjoying the moment, and we all know there's nothing funnier than seeing little tykes trying to dance. It was, after all was said and done, a night to revel in our shared humanity, sweat off a few pounds in the humid night, and wonder why more nights can't be like this, more crowds this welcoming to all.

Audience participation was a big deal all night, starting with the second song, when a crew member found a singing teen in the crowd and brought her onstage to hold her own with Franti, as he sang his hit “The Sound of Sunshine.” Sienna said she was from Cambridge, and she looked to be about fifteen, but she had legitimate vocal chops and last night should inspire her to pursue music. The trombone and alto sax players and lead singer and namesake from opening band Hirie joined Franti for a groove-heavy ballad, “The Only Thing Missing Is You.”

But the most notable Franti collaborator last night was 19-year old Victoria Canal, who first joined him to do a duet on the lively soul number “Stay With Me.” Canal, who was born without her right forearm, was discovered through online videos by Franti, who quickly contacted the singer/pianist/multi-instrumentalist and asked her to join his tour. As Canal humorously recalled it onstage, “I didn't really know who he was–it was just some Michael guy online, wanting me to tour the country with him and his band.”

Franti toured most of the venue while singing and playing “You're Number One,” a steamy dance-rocker, and then a ukelele powered the reggae soul of “Just To Say I Love You.” Judging from his vibrant dancing and jumping, and traversing through the big tent, Franti's knee operation last fall was a successful one, and the 51-year old singer delivered a workout that had him drenched in sweat after about three tunes.

Franti related how, when on Cape Cod to play The Melody Tent a week or so back, he'd had the chance to meet 90-year old Ethel Kennedy. Franti spoke of his admiration for her late husband, Robert F. Kennedy, and the unifying effect he'd been able to have on the nation. (Talking of RFK interrupting his Senate campaign to visit South Africa in 1966, Franti said he was running for the Senate seat for Massachusetts, when a Cohasset crowd surely knew it was New York State, so we have to give him a mulligan on that detail.) But Franti's point was that even in '66 RFK recognized Nelson Mandela's imprisonment and the plight of his countrymen in South Africa, and he read the portion of RFK's memorable South African speech, about how small pebbles thrown in the water can create ripples that spread. Citing that attitude as a reason to be optimistic, no matter what the daily news, Franti and his band did “It's Great to Be Alive Today,” wherein his hip-hop-flavored verses resolved into classic soul choruses.

Franti's hit “Hey Hey Hey” was a fast-paced, pounding romp as he again traveled around the circular venue to involve one and all in the fun. If anything, “Looking for a Way To Get To Saturday Night” was an even more rowdy and giddy soul-rocker. “Standing Next To You” proved that Franti can handle a smooth soul ballad as well as anyone.

But the highlight of the show might came when Franti and Canal told how they'd finally met, and tried writing some music together. The first result, from Franti's forthcoming album, is “Flower in the Gun,” an anthemic tune delivered Sunday as a soul duet, with Canal and Franti trading verses. With marked gospel roots, this song has the irresistible chorus “In a world that's so divided, We shall overcome, We can be the healing, The flower in the gun..” If the words didn't hit hard enough, the two singers took it to even more potent blues territory, with Canal especially lending the song a soulful weight with her magnificent range. She's clearly a massive talent.

Nobody with a pulse could resist all those rug-rats dancing earnestly through those last two songs as a show-stopping finale. But Franti and company had more, and as his keyboardist played the familiar melody of John Lennon's “Imagine,” members of his band, and the Hirie band all embraced at center stage and led the audience of about 1500 fans in a warm rendition of the classic. On a night like this it seemed like that old song's reverie was almost true.

Hirie, the band led by the singer by the same name (born Patricia Jetton), opened the night with a sizzling 40-minutes of their reggae/rock dance stew.